Stepping outside your comfort zone

Gosh things have changed when it comes to giving people information.

Years ago when we started Communicate Consultants we made sure our workshops were interactive with the learning taking place through discussion ,experiential exercises , practical work and not much lecture.

The key was face to face communication over a period of time usually one day. And it still is today.

However I am now embarking on an entirely new (to me ) way of running workshops. Webinars.

Talk about stepping outside your comfort zone and challenging your assumptions on how people can take in information.

Instead of reacting to the participants body language and facial expressions and adjusting the programme accordingly by stopping,asking questions and getting group involvement I am chatting to my laptop.

As much as I like my laptop it isn’t the most responsive of media and doesn’t get my jokes.

So I have had to adjust how I get the message across to the people on ‘the other side’.

It’s a bit like using your voice on the phone to sound excited,enthusiastic and engaging whilst seeing yourself on the camera (like Skype) and looking quite peculiar.

Questions pop up randomly which need answering but I can’t check they have understood or I’ve answered the question correctly.its a case of fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is my second webinar this time on Negotiations to IPENZ The Institute of Professional Engineers www.ipenz.org.nz

So why do them?

The answer is its an efficient way to get a message across to people scattered over a large geographical area

Its quick -one hour to stimulate your participants to understand some principles and learn some new stuff

And for me it’s the chance to step outside my comfort zone and tackle a new skills-that’s got to be fun!